


A Lie

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Vhenan AU [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Game, Pre-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 03:37:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11455173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: “Will you talk to me when we are finished with Corypheus?”“If we are still alive afterward, then I promise you, everything will be made clear.”And yet he disappeared...





	A Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to this most beautiful of paintings by @lavilsa on tumblr! Because everything that isn't a writing prompt becomes a writing prompt while my ACTUAL writing prompts just sit in my inbox... I am a mess...
> 
> https://lavilsa.tumblr.com/post/162574964896/will-you-talk-to-me-when-we-are-finished-with

How dare he? How dare he promise something like that when he KNEW. He knew. He must have. She couldn’t believe it had been anything other than a planned escape, another damned excuse, just a new way to hurt her. He promised explanations if they both came out on the other side, yet instead he simply vanished. Did he expect her die in the attempt? Had he planned for it? How dare he?

Fury washed over her until there was nothing but the pain, the agony, the red hot haze across her eyes. In her search for answers, she tore the room apart. Furniture flew and papers scattered and she was tempted to set the whole thing alight. How could he do something so awful and underhanded to her?

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.” His words in her memory taunted her, as though he were laughing at her pain from wherever he’d retreated to. She’d believed him. She’d loved him. She’d TRUSTED him. And maybe that hurt the worst, that he would betray her trust so easily, without a second thought or a glance back. He’d promised answers, yet where was he now?

She flipped his entire desk upside down and her energy was suddenly drained away. There was nothing left to destroy in the rotunda, once her most cherished retreat. There was only her agony and the hot tears sliding down her face. She sank to the floor, weak and limp and foolish for believing in him.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, crying over the unfairness of it all and his lies, his betrayals burning in her chest. Finally she blinked and some of the tears subsided, cleared from her vision and she realised that she was staring at a sketchbook that had been hidden somewhere in the room, not one that she had ever seen before. It was different, the book old, the leather unlike anything she had seen. It must have been ancient elven, something he’d found in his travels, the grayed and frail leather making it clear it was authentic.

She pulled it out of the mess, wondering if it might hold answers for her, things he’d wanted to keep hidden. She opened it up and the first few pages were indecipherable, whatever sketches they had contained lost to time. But a few pages in and the charcoal images became clear again all at once. She saw the breach, sketched in perfect detail with anger in every stroke. She saw Haven, people milling about within it’s walls, melancholy clear on the page. She saw herself, out cold on a stone floor, her left hand drawn in the most detail, the rest of her blurry and unimportant. She saw the Hinterlands, an angry sort of helplessness in every line. She saw Val Royeaux and herself facing off against Chantry mothers and demons posing as Templars and felt his indignation in the strokes of his pencil.

And gradually, page after page, the images gained a theme. Until, at last, each and every page was of her. Her face in every mood, her body in every pose, her stance as she closed rifts, her determination at each trial. The strokes against the paper changed, too, growing softer and gentler, until each image was imbued with a sort of wonder and love. He drew her face in agonizing detail, lips still pursed from a kiss, eyes dreamy as she looked at him. He drew her body writhing beneath his, every detail perfect. He drew her sitting on the couch she had just thrown across the room with a book in her lap and a smile on her face.

And the final image, she was on her knees, bathed in moonlight, hands on her face not quite hiding the tears that flowed. Hart statues on either side, waterfalls behind her, and agony in each stroke of the charcoal. “Ar lath ma,” written across the bottom, sorrow in the words.

It hadn’t been a lie.


End file.
